"We live in a society where African American history is taught as an elective instead of as a requirement; where we have to disbar our culture because it is not professional; where we have to prove our competence and intellectual capabilities, and thereafter live with the label 'you’re not really black.' We live in a… enough is enough.
In our present day, and contrary to popular belief, African Americans are perceived as second-class citizens. Fueled with anger and passion, we organize peaceful protests yet are called savages — while looters and enraged sports fans who burn and flip cars are simply just celebrating their favorite team’s victory. These comparisons have been made so frequently, we have become numb to such outlandish comments.
As much as we are aware that changes need to be made, we cannot do this alone. I welcome you to educate yourself about the struggles we have and unfortunately still continue to endure physically, mentally, and verbally. Ignorance is bliss but only to the ignorant."
– Juwan Rainer (VSB ’18)
Black and African American: Databases A-Z
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century (Accessible Archives)Provides access to the major 19th century African American newspapers including The Christian Recorder (1861-1902), Freedom's Journal (1827-1829), The North Star (1847-1851), and Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851-1863).
African American Studies Center (Oxford University Press)Contains a selection of information sources ranging from the authoritative Encyclopedia of African American History to the African American National Biography project. Selected primary sources, maps, images, charts, and tables round out the collection.
Black Abolitionist Papers (ProQuest)Features newspapers articles, manuscripts, letters, pamphlets, proceedings, and books written by African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Black Americans in CongressFeatures educational resources, historical essays, member profiles, artifacts and historical data. For more detailed information see also: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/hd108-224/index.html -- House Document No. 108-224, Black Americans in Congress 1870 - 2007.
Black Authors, 1556-1922 (Readex)Provides online access to the print archives of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Features works by authors of African and African-American descent.
Black Drama, 3rd Edition (Alexander Street Press)Contains the full text of works by playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries together with detailed information about productions, theaters, production companies, and other ephemera related to the plays. Many of the works are rare, hard-to-find, or out of print. Includes a large number of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, Alice Childress, Amiri Baraka, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others. Coverage goes back to the middle of the 19th century.
Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest)Offers access to the full text of articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press. While most of the content is in English, some content in non-English languages is included. Coverage for most newspapers and magazines goes back to the early 1990s, but earlier content is also available.
Philadelphia Tribune, 1991- (Proquest)Provides full-text access to articles published between 1991 and the present. The Philadelphia Tribune is the oldest continuously published African American newspaper in the U.S. Older articles are accessible through Proquest Historical Newspapers.
African American Communities (Adam Matthew Digital)Documents African American community life from the second half of the 19th century through a wide variety of material types including pamphlets, newspapers, scrapbooks, letters, official records, posters, photographs, and oral histories. Key themes are desegregation, urban renewal and housing, the civil rights movement, race relations, and African American culture with a focus on communities in Atlanta, Chicago, Brooklyn, and towns and cities in North Carolina. Essays by subject experts, community case studies, thematic guides, and image galleries facilitate research. Sourced from the collections of the Atlanta History Center, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the libraries at the University of Illinois and the University of North Carolina.
Black Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)Offers access to the major African American newspapers of the 20th century: the Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), the Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), the Cleveland Call & Post (1934-1991), the Chicago Defender (1910-1975), the Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), the New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), the Norfolk Journal & Guide (1921-2003), the Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), and the Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).
Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)Offers full text access to the archives of a selection of newspapers available on the ProQuest platform: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the major African American newspapers of the 20th century, including the Chicago Defender. Coverage varies.
Black and African American: Books and eBooks
The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorblindnessMichelle Alexander argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.
The Cambridge Companion to the African American NovelThe Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel presents new essays covering the one hundred and fifty year history of the African American novel. Experts in the field from the US and Europe address some of the major issues in the genre: passing, the Protest novel, the Blues novel, and womanism among others. This Companion is full of fresh insights into the symbolic, aesthetic, and political function of canonical and non-canonical fiction. Chapters examine works by Ralph Ellison, Leon Forrest, Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman, and many others. They reflect a range of critical methods intended to prompt new and experienced readers to consider the African American novel as a cultural and literary act of extraordinary significance. This volume, including a chronology and guide to further reading, is an important resource for students and teachers alike.
The Cambridge Companion to the African American Slave NarrativeThe slave narrative has emerged as a fundamental genre within literary studies.
This Companion examines the slave narrative's relation to transatlantic abolitionism,
British and American literary traditions including captivity narratives, autobiography, and sentimental literature, and the larger African American literary tradition. The volume also explores the history of the genre, including its rediscovery and authentication, its subsequent critical reception, and its continued importance to modern authors such as Toni Morrison and Edward P. Jones. Attention is paid both to well known slave narratives, such as those by Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, and to a wide range of lesser-known narratives. With its chronology and guide to further reading, the Companion provides both an easy entry point for students new to the subject and comprehensive coverage and original insights for scholars in the field.
The Cambridge Companion to African American TheatreThis Companion provides a comprehensive overview of African American theatre, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Along the way, it chronicles the evolution of African American theatre and its engagement with the wider community, including discussions of slave rebellions on the national stage, African Americans on Broadway, the Harlem Renaissance, African American women dramatists, and the 'New Negro' and 'Black Arts' movements. Leading scholars spotlight the producers, directors, playwrights and actors whose efforts helped to fashion a more accurate appearance of Black life on stage, and reveal the impact of African American theatre both within the United States and further afield. Chapters also address recent theatre productions in the context of political and cultural change and ask where African American theatre is heading in the twenty-first century.
The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's LiteratureThe Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature covers a period dating back to the eighteenth century. These specially commissioned essays highlight the artistry, complexity and diversity of a literary tradition that ranges from Lucy Terry to Toni Morrison. A wide range of topics are addressed, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts movement, and from the performing arts to popular fiction. Together, the essays provide an invaluable guide to a rich, complex tradition of women writers in conversation with each other as they critique American society and influence American letters. Accessible and vibrant, with the needs of undergraduate students in mind, this Companion will be of great interest to anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important and vital area of American literature.
The Cambridge History of African American LiteratureThe first major twenty-first century history of four hundred years of black writing, The Cambridge History of African American Literature presents a comprehensive overview of the literary traditions, oral and print, of African-descended peoples in the United States. Expert contributors, drawn from the United States and beyond, emphasise the dual nature of each text discussed as a work of art created by an individual and as a response to unfolding events in American cultural, political, and social history
African American Theatre: a Historical and Critical AnalysisA landmark work in the study of Black theater and drama, African American Theatre offers the first comprehensive history of a major cultural phenomenon until now too often neglected. In this fast-paced investigation, Hay seeks out the origins of Black theater in social protest, as envisioned by W.E.B. Dubois, and as a formal branch of arts theater. Divided between these opposing forces--the activist and the artistic--Black theater, Hay argues, faced conflicts of identity whose traces still haunt the medium today. African American Theatre thus offers a means of locating Black theater in the larger context of American theater and in the continuum of African American history from the nineteenth century to the present--and in doing so offers a profile of dramatic expression shaped and scarred by the forces of repression, of self-affirmation, and of subversion. Sweeping in scope, original in approach and provocatively written, this important book mines the origins and influences directing Black theater, while charting a course for its future survival.
The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance (1918–37) was the most influential single movement in African American literary history. Its key figures include W. E. B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. The movement laid the groundwork for all later African American literature, and had an enormous impact on later black literature worldwide. With chapters by a wide range of well-known scholars, this Companion is an authoritative and engaging guide to the movement. It first discusses the historical contexts of the Harlem Renaissance, both national and international; then presents original discussions of a wide array of authors and texts; and finally treats the reputation of the movement in later years. Giving full play to the disagreements and differences that energized the renaissance, this Companion presents the best of current wisdom as well as a set of new readings encouraging further exploration of this dynamic field.
The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm XMalcolm X is one of the most important figures in the twentieth-century struggle for racial equality in America. With the passing of time, and changing attitudes to race and religion in American society, the significance of a public figure like Malcolm X continues to evolve and to challenge. This Companion presents new perspectives on Malcolm X's life and legacy in a series of specially commissioned essays by prominent scholars from a range of disciplines. As a result, this is an unusually rich analysis of this important African American leader, orator, and cultural icon. Intended as a source of information on his life, career and influence and as an innovative substantive scholarly contribution in its own right, the book also includes an introduction, a chronology of the life of Malcolm X, and a guide to further reading.
The Cambridge Companion to Toni MorrisonNobel laureate Toni Morrison is one of the most widely studied of contemporary American authors. Her novels, particularly Beloved, have had a dramatic impact on the American canon and attracted considerable critical commentary. This Companion introduces and examines her oeuvre as a whole, the first evaluation to include not only her famous novels, but also her other literary works (short story, drama, musical, and opera), her social and literary criticism, and her career as an editor and teacher. Innovative contributions from internationally recognized critics and academics discuss Morrison's themes, narrative techniques, language, and political philosophy, and explain the importance of her work to American studies and world literature. This comprehensive and accessible approach, together with a chronology and guide to further reading, makes this an essential book for students and scholars of African American literature.
The Cambridge Companion to American civil rights literatureThe Cambridge Companion to American Civil Rights Literature brings together leading scholars to examine the significant traditions, genres, and themes of civil rights literature. While civil rights scholarship has typically focused on documentary rather than creative writing, and political rather than cultural history, this Companion addresses the gap and provides university students with a vast introduction to an impressive range of authors, including Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and Toni Morrison. Accessible to undergraduates and academics alike, this Companion surveys the critical landscape of a rapidly growing field and lays the foundation for future studies.
Harriet Tubman: Slavery, the Civil War, and Civil Rights in the Nineteenth CenturyEscaped slave, Civil War spy, scout, and nurse, and champion of women's suffrage, Harriet Tubman is an icon of heroism. Perhaps most famous for leading enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad, Tubman was dubbed "Moses" by followers. But abolition and the close of the Civil War were far from the end of her remarkable career. Tubman continued to fight for black civil rights, and campaign fiercely for women's suffrage, throughout her life.
In this vivid, concise narrative supplemented by primary documents, Kristen T. Oertel introduces readers to Tubman's extraordinary life, from the trauma of her childhood slavery to her civil rights activism in the late nineteenth century, and in the process reveals a nation's struggle over its most central injustices.
The Chicago Freedom Movement Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the NorthSix months after the Selma to Montgomery marches and just weeks after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a group from Martin Luther King Jr.'s staff arrived in Chicago, eager to apply his nonviolent approach to social change in a northern city. Once there, King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined the locally based Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) to form the Chicago Freedom Movement. The open housing demonstrations they organized eventually resulted in a controversial agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley and other city leaders, the fallout of which has historically led some to conclude that the movement was largely ineffective.
In this important volume, an eminent team of scholars and activists offer an alternative assessment of the Chicago Freedom Movement's impact on race relations and social justice, both in the city and across the nation. Building upon recent works, the contributors reexamine the movement and illuminate its lasting contributions in order to challenge conventional perceptions that have underestimated its impressive legacy.
Black and African American: Community Curated Content
On Wednesday, April 18, 2018, Dr. Terry Nance, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, gave a talk in Falvey Library's Speakers' Corner on the language of race and the movement from multicultural education to intercultural education. The link above contains her powerpoint presentation.